The Dark Side of Water
by Arsosah
Summary: Johnny is in jail, Dallas is missing and Ponyboy... he's sure there is something in the water.


**The Dark Side of Water**

 _The surface is near. Only seven inches away, but I can't reach it. Eager hands hold me down. Drunk hands._

 _Evil hands._

 _I'm scared. My chest hurts. I need to breathe. I struggle, but they respond by dunking my head against the stone bottom of the fountain until I give up. The water above is murky, dark. I don't want to die here but I have no strength left in me. I want my brothers, my mom and my dad, want to come up, out of this water, want someone, anyone, to help me._

 _I need air. Desperately. They've gone too far. I know it's too late now. Their hands are too strong and I can't fight them. I trash against the hands, panic one more time and water flows into my mouth, my nose, my lungs-  
_

 _..._

 _..._

 _..._

xXx

Sometimes I wake up.

It's dizzy, hazy moments.

Faces hover. Hands and fingers and gently touches. I try to move away from them, but it's too hard. I don't know why my limbs are so heavy, stuck to the surface. Why it feels like they don't belong to me. I feel my arms rest along my body, but they could belong to someone else. I could be someone else.

I don't know where I am. I'm in whiteness. In strange sounds. Flying and floating and lying still. In softness and pain.

I am in my name that's whispered.

 _Are you awake, Pony?_

 _Look at me, Pony._

 _Squeeze my hand if you can hear me._

I don't know why it's sometimes light and sometimes dark when I open my eyes. How it can change from day to night when only seconds pass.

One time I open my eyes and everything is familiar. It's my room. My bed. My desk. I don't know how I got here, if I'm really here, because my last memory is not my room, not my house, but something...

My heart slows down when I see my brother asleep in the armchair. I don't have an armchair in my room, but it's here, and I'm drifting away again before I can figure out how everything fits.

I don't know why I feel so hot and so cold at the same time. I don't know why it's still so hard to breathe. Why I can't swallow without my throat throbbing.

I wake up and I sleep.

Soda says, "C'mon, Pony, let's get you to the bathroom, alright?" and he guides me there while I'm stumbling, tripping, sinking down and he holds me up. One arm around my waist, letting me rest my head against his shoulder. He's warm and I'm so tired.

"It's okay," he says, soothingly, relieved. "You gonna be alright, Pony."

He tells me that a lot. Sometimes I believe him.

I shiver and they cover me.

I'm hot and they place a wet rag on my forehead. It drips along my face.

" _No,_ " I try to say. Because no water.

Just no.

No.

I push the glass away and Darry tells me I need to drink.

" _No water_ ," I say, and the words sound weird, foreign, like I'm speaking a different language. "No water."

"Orange juice?" Soda asks, calming me down, one hand on my arm, and I drink it.

I blink and turn to my side and cough and cough and cough. I have a fire in my chest.

I sleep and I wake up.

" _Five fuckin' years_ ," I hear Dally through the wall. He's using that voice that when you hear it - if you know him - you know you need to avoid him. When he's imploding before exploding. When he's the most dangerous.

I manage to get my elbow under me. The blanket glides from my naked chest as I push myself up to half-sitting, ignoring my spinning head.

"Lie down," Soda says patiently, but he only keeps one eye at me. He has his head turned sideways, ear in the direction of the door, so I know he's listening, too.

" _No fuckin' way, I need to fix this! Like hell I'm gonna leave him there!"_ _  
_

I'm too weak. Sinking back against my pillows, wheezing out my breaths, my eyes search for Soda's. It's dark in my room, the only light coming from my little desk lamp, but I can see that he manages to give me a smile. A fake smile that doesn't calm me one bit.

" _T_ _hat goddamn Soc, if he wasn't dead already I would kill him, the fuckin' bastard-"_

"Soda, what's going on?" I whisper.

But he only shakes his head, even though I'm sure he knows. "You have to sleep now, Pony."

"I already have been sleeping."

"Well, sleep some more, then." He grabs the blanket and covers me up again.

"But Soda," I start, and then we both jump at the loud crash and Darry telling Dally to stop. Then there is a second crash, a third one, and Soda is halfway up from the armchair, hesitating between staying with me and going to see what happens in the living room.

"Dally! _Dallas_ , _wait_ ," Darry shouts, and the front door slams shut so hard that my window rattles in its frame.

After that, it's silent.

xXx

My room is a sanctuary I don't want to leave. I don't feel safe, but safer, my cocoon of blankets and pillows the only world I want to live in. The outside of my room feels so much bigger now, so much more unknown, with so much more to be afraid of. As I'm getting better I have begun to dream, but it's the kind of dreams you don't really wake up from. That leaves a bad feeling you can't shake away.

"Come on, Pony," Soda tries to persuade me. "The doc said moving around is good for you."

I hear the rain splatter against the window. Like fingers clawing against the glass. If I removed the curtains, opened up the blinds, maybe I would see them. White and cold, sharp and demanding.

 _They lost me._

"No," I say, hiding my face, my fear of a dream coming true.

"Hey." He tries to dig me up, but I'm stronger now, and he lets me have it my way.

"You know, we should talk," he says a little later, after ten minutes of silence, a lot more serious. "Ponyboy?"

"No."

"We should. About Johnny."

The rain increases in intensity. Wanting me to hear it. Water falling. Wanting to flow into my body again.

 _Wants me back._

"I know about him," I mumble. I can't look Soda in his eyes. I want to care about Johnny. Want to think about how unfair it is that they locked him away when he saved me. But I can't think of him now, I would fall apart if I did.

"Did Darry talk to you?" Soda wonders.

"No. I heard you."

"When?"

"Yesterday."

"We thought you were asleep," Soda admits. "We were gonna talk to you, you know that, don't you?"

"It's okay. I don't want to talk about it anyway."

Soda sighs. His legs are jittery, and I think he wants me out of bed more for himself than me. He's tired of staying home. Tired of being in my room all the time. He's a boy in a cage with an open door, but he won't leave because I don't want to leave with him.

He paces the floor, pokes at my things. Stops by the window. I know it will happen before it happens, and maybe I want it because I don't stop him. Maybe I just want to see. I hold my breath in my chest, air in my lungs as he moves the curtain, drags at the cord to pull up the blinds.

"Shit, it's raining so much you can't see anything," he says, but I see it.

I see it.

The handprint in the bottom corner of the rain-soaked surface.

It shouldn't be there. Not for real. Not outside my dreams. I want to shout at Soda to step away from the window, away from the water, but I can't do anything, can't move, can't find my voice. Just stare, more scared than I have ever been, until he drops the cord and the blinds fall down again.

xXx

Soda says I look like a foal, trying its legs for the first time. At least I can make the trip to the bathroom and back by myself now. I don't have many memories of Soda helping me in there, but what I do remember is embarrassing enough.

When I go there, I check the faucet, I check the shower, to make sure no water drips. I don't wash myself. Don't brush my teeth. I throw paper into the toilet bowl before I use it. I keep hiding my dirty finger nails and bad breaths.

"Pony, take a shower today," Darry says one morning. He looks more tired than I feel, with dark circles under his eyes and his jaw hardly shaved. It looks like he hasn't slept for weeks. Maybe he hasn't. Maybe I don't really know how sick I was.

He leans against the doorpost, and I know he waits for an answer, than he won't leave without one. But I can't speak, can't tell him why it would be impossible.

"Pony?"

I make a small movement with my head. It could look like a nod.

When Darry's gone, I crawl back under my blankets and close my eyes. Soda is still staying home with me, making everything a little less scary. But I really wish he wasn't home right now, when he digs me up, ruffles my hair and tells me, "You stink, Ponyboy."

" _You_ stink," I retort childishly. My only comeback, because he's right. Almost two weeks now. Two weeks and no water against my skin.

"C'mon. I can make you blueberry pancakes while you shower if you want to." He stands up and takes my blanket with him. I know I have no choice, and I try not to show that I'm scared when I get up on my feet.

"Do I have to?" I ask in a small voice. "Can't I do it tomorrow?"

Like it would be better, then. It will never be better.

 _Stay away from the water._

"It's gonna feel great, Pony," Soda tries to assure me, placing an arm around my shoulders and gently pushing me forward. But I plant my heels down hard into the carpet.

"Soda, I don't want to do it."

He must sense my panic, because he moves so he can look me in my eyes. "What's wrong?"

"Hey!" He grabs my shoulders when I don't respond, holding me, forcing me to look back at him. "Talk to me."

"I don't want to be in the water."

He takes a deep breath. I see the fear and sorrow in his face.

"I know, Pony. It was scary, alright? What they did..." He can't even say it. "I get it. But this ain't the same. And I can stay with you if you want to, okay?"

I shake my head at him, because he doesn't get it. "It's not... it's not what they did."

"What is it, then?"

But I can't tell him. Can't tell anyone about the hands.

Not their hands.

The eager ones, the drunk ones. The ones I thought were evil.

But the other hands.

The other...

I close my eyes hard, shudder, starting to sway. I feel Soda gripping me tighter.

"Ponyboy?" he says, worry in his voice.

I lean against him, needing the comfort, needing him to keep me safe, because of the hands, the hands…

Not the ones that was holding me under.

But the ones that was dragging me down.

* * *

I don't own The Outsiders.

Thank you so much for reading. It would make my day if you wanted to leave a review and tell me what you think! I'm debating with myself if I can put this as a horror story, but I don't think I can write horror... so... angst will have to do.

And if you recognize the part in the beginning, it's from one of my old one shots that I took down to rewrite. Although this turned out to be a completely different story...


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